Two key track meets looming on calendar

Wednesday

Apr 10, 2013 at 12:13 AMApr 10, 2013 at 12:14 AM

Erich Murphy's Sez MEE column

Erich Murphy

Just as the weather starts getting more baseball like, the rain makes an appearance. According to the forecast, today is supposed to be extremely wet — a lot of precipitation. That means today’s ballgames will be called off. Depending on the amount of rain, Thursday’s games may very well also get the hook. Then comes Friday with cold temps making a curtain call. Yep, there’s something to be said about spring weather in Illinois. Coming up are a couple of key track and field meets at Williamson Field that are really the highlight of the season, at least until the sectional and state finals meets. The first meet of significance around here is the Livingston County Invitational. Although Pontiac is the big dog, and Prairie Central and Dwight typically have deep squads, it is the gathering of all the area schools that makes it big. It will be held — weather permitting — on April 18. Some of the athletes competing will find their way to Charleston at state finals time. Being a name-dropper, one of the better athletes this year will be Flanagan-Cornell’s Brent Albertson, a sprinter who will compete at Princeton at the collegiate level. Frankly, there aren’t too many Division I athletes competing, let alone one who is going to an Ivy League school. That says a lot about the kid. There are also some interesting events that seem to make the meet quite enjoyable for the athletes and the fans. One is the pentathlon for boys and girls. This is where on athlete competes in five events and scoring is based on performance time or distance, not placement. However, the higher the place does mean the more points scored. This has been a favorite of quite athletes, even to the point where there have stars in a particular event who opted to compete in the pentathlon instead of winning a specific event going away. Another group of events deals with the throwers — those who toss the discus or put the shot. There is a Big Man’s 100-meter dash and a co-ed weightman’s relay. The dash is self-explanatory. The relay is a 4x100 with two boys and two girls who compete in the shot or discus. The baton in the relay is a football. Pontiac will be hosting its annual relays on April 23 — again, weather permitting. This is a special event because it is a gathering of some quality boys’ track programs, though not as many as I would like to see. It is unusual to me in that the frosh-soph events count as much as the varsity. I am not a fan of that because it allows coaches to load up at the frosh-soph level if that team’s best athletes are freshmen or sophomores. A varsity meet should count varsity points. I understand and can agree with adding the frosh-soph as an entire team concept, but the frosh-soph points should not be as significant. That said there have been some fine performances at the Pontiac Relays over the years. In recent years the meet has come down to the final one or two events. There is also a weightman’s relay, which also uses a football and is run by the varsity and frosh-soph throwers from each team. Where the meets, themselves, are entertaining, there will be some emptiness this year. Don Daluga, a longtime fan and supporter, as well as former coach and PTHS athletic director, will be missed. Daluga passed away recently, leaving the meets with someone else having to come in and help. Daluga was a presence on the infield, helping things run as smooth as possible and always happy to encourage and congratulate the athletes. Someone will step in and basically do the job Daluga was assigned, but nobody is going to fill his shoes.

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